The Vegan Terrorist?

Yesterday, the FBI announced that Daniel Andreas San Diego has been added to their “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.  This is the first time a domestic terrorist has been added to the list.  He is an animal rights activists and detonated two bombsin 2003 near the headquarters of companies that engaged in animal testing.  No one was killed or injured, but there was property damage.

Here is San Diego, on the same list as Osama bin Laden.  According to the FBI, these were very sophisticated bombs that used kitchen timers.  Since when are kitchen timers sophisticated?  He also might be armed with a 9mm handgun, so you should consider him armed and dangerous.  Seriously, how does this man pose more of a threat than any criminal that is on the loose right now?

Also, the timing of his addition to the list is very curious.  Just last week, a Department of Homeland Security memo was leaked identifying “right wing extremists.”  Their reaction to the memo was that they track “left-wing extremists” as well.  The point is that our police state is starting to monitor more and more domestic activity, from militias to protesters.

Is the FBI, DHS, and the Federal Government getting more concerned with our activities in the US?  Do they fear that as we progress further into the New Great Depression that people are going to try and rise up against the government?  Are they trying to suppress our actions with scare tactics?

Just think if protests turn into riots and property is damaged?  Could these protesters be classified as terrorists?  What happens then?  Are they locked up in a military prison somewhere?  If you donated money to their cause, would you be implicit to their crimes? 

In each case of the government flexing its muscles, the actions become less fitting of the crime.  At what point will opposition to the government be considered extremism or terrorism?  We need to stand up for our rights and liberties before they are all stripped away.  This might sound extreme, but if we do not push back against the police powers our government is taking, what else do you expect to happen?

The Police State Puzzle Taking Shape

There have been a number of police state measures recently that might look benign at first, but when you put them all together the picture becomes awfully scary.  While there might not be a coordinated effort or specific target group, there is enough momentum going that anyone who speaks out against the government could have their homes raided and be detained and jailed.

It started after 9/11, when we were outraged that the government could not protect us from coordinated terrorist attacks.  At the time, we wanted the government to be able to listen in on potential terrorists.  After all, the authorities said that if they were coordinated and were allowed to access information, they could have prevented the tragedy.

This led to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and their program of listening in on our phone conversations, checking our internet browsing history, and being able to detain suspected terrorists without charging them with a crime.  Of course, the government told us that they were only spying on suspected terrorists, so none of us thought twice about it.

Over time, the efforts of the DHS have made some arrests that have resulted in convictions.  Other efforts though, have detained foreigners and US citizens for years without any charges being filed.  The government alleges that some of these detainees were fighting for Al Qaeda and aiding the enemy.  If this were the case, why weren’t they leveling charges?  If their allegations cannot hold up in a court, they should let the “terrorist” go.

In a separate effort, the Federal Government, led by agents from the FBI and IRS have been raiding homes of high profile individuals under the guise of “tax charges.”  Just recently, twenty agents raided the home of Barry Bonds’s trainer, Greg Anderson’s mother-in-law.  While this was clearly an intimidation technique to try and get Anderson to testify against Bonds, it was completely legal in the government’s eyes because of “tax charges.”  If they sent 20 agents to her house, then hundreds must have surely shown up at Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle’s homes, right?

Another example of the Federal Government’s new authority to raid the homes of private citizens has been playing out in family or co-op farms in the Midwest.  In Ohio, a family was raided by federal agents from the Food and Drug Administration because they were selling organic produce without the proper permits.  The agents seized the food from the co-op and food that belonged to the family.  They also took the family’s computer and went through all of their belongings.  Couldn’t they have just issued them a letter or met with the family?  Was this force necessary?  The scary part is that the government believed they were acting within the law.

So, now we’ve established that the government can spy on you  and detain you indefinitely if they think you are a terrorist, and they can raid your home and seize your property on bogus charges.

This now takes us to a case in a town near me, Tustin, California, where a Muslim man was arrested by Federal Agents on immigration fraud charges.  However, the entire story revolves around this man and how he donated money to a charity that was sympathetic to Al Qaeda, how his brother-in-law at one point was an associate of Osama bin Laden, and how this man said on a wiretapped phone conversation that bin Laden was “an angel.”  The agents raided his home and went through and seized his belongings and financial statements.  All this for lying on his immigration papers? The real reason is because they are going after him for being a “terrorist” but they do not have enough evidence to convict him.

While I do not know what the outcome of the trial will be.  If he indeed lied on his papers, then he should be punished.  The actions of the government though, allowing them to spy on us and raid our homes for reasons completely unrelated to what we are being charged.  It’s like getting a speeding ticket and having the government come and raid your home and take your computer for it.  It might keep us safe a fraction of the time, but it encroaches on all of our civil rights the majority of it.

So far though, most of the spying was relegated to “terrorists.”  Just yesterday though, I read a new DHS report about “right wing extremists” and how they could be forming militias in response to the bailouts and the recession we’re in.  The DHS was warning local law enforcement to be on the lookout for them.  These extremists would recruit soldiers returning from Iraq and turn them against the government.  In order for the DHS to look unbiased, they also said that they are investigating left-wing groups as well.  So, as long as you’re spying on both groups, it’s okay?

The question now, and what all this has been building towards, is “at what point do these ‘extremists’ become ‘terrorists’ in the government’s eyes?”  If the government went after someone for calling Osama bin Laden an “angel” in a private conversation, will they go after Rush Limbaugh for wanting Obama to fail?  Will they raid supporters of Ron Paul who believe in the Constitution and small government?  Will anyone who disagrees with Washington a “terrorist”?

We are told they are there to keep us safe, but government will almost always abuse their powers and overstep their limits.  The Justice Department came out with a report today saying the DHS survelliance program has violated the law by going past the legal bounds.  How are we supposed trust the government to keep us safe when they can be listening to your phone conversations or monitoring your internet use right now?  We need to wake up and see these police state measures as the violations of our rights that they really are.

The Blowback of John and Sarah

Blowback is the unintended consequences of actions you make.

Last week, while the economy was melting down and financial panic gripped the country, John McCain and Sarah Palin didn’t even give mention to the current crisis.  Instead, they were too busy connecting Barack Obama to a domestic terrorist who’s actions are over 40 years old.

I’m sure there is more to the relationship between Bill Ayers and Barack Obama than “just a guy in the neighborhood.”  However, I’m sure that the relationship was along professional lines and had nothing to do with terrorism.  Republicans and Democrats both sat on the same board as Obama and Ayers.  In fact, it was closely associated with a Reagan aid.

McCain and Palin were busy though, painting Obama as a man you couldn’t trust, who “palled around with terrorists.”  My question to the last statement, is why is that plural?  Is Palin trying to say that Obama is associated with other terrorists?  How do you see that?

Also, during their speeches, they would leave pauses for the crowd to shout things out.  Like McCain said, “Do you know who the real Obama is?” and someone from the crowd yelled “terrorist!”  Others yelled to kill him or shouted racial epithets.  Also, the announcers at these events would always introduce him as “Barrack Hussein Obama.”  That just adds more fuel to the fire.

This is completely unacceptable.  Even though they aren’t directly saying it, McCain and Palin are planting ideas in the minds of every American that Obama is a radical terrorist.  While most people can sort through the information and process it rationally, there are some people who can not and who might act out.

God forbid that someone tries to take out or do harm to Obama, but you never know.  McCain and Palin are only working up the public more and more with every verbal attack.  It’s a dirty and dangerous game they are playing.  It’s fine to question someone’s judgement, but leave it at that.  Don’t insinuate or even put the seed in someone’s mind that your opponent is the enemy.

The blowback could be disasterous.